Law Profs Say Yes To Legalizing Pot

More than 75 law professors have signed an open letter to California voters in support of Proposition 19, a ballot motion that would make growth and recreational use of cannabis legal for adults. It would also allow local governments to regulate marijuana usage.

The Chronicle of Higher Education identifies Georgetown's Randy Barnett, Harvard's Alan Dershowitz, and Emory's Alexander Volokh as some of the more prominent signatories.

In the letter, the professors call the current marijuana laws "wasteful and ineffective," and argue that legalizing the drug would shrink the existing black market and allow law enforcers to spend more time and resources on reducing violent crime. The letter also asserts that enforcement of marijuana laws is often a thinly veiled means of promoting structural racism.

These endorsements might lend legitimacy to student groups interested in examining drug laws, like DePaul University's Students for Cannabis Policy Reform. When this organization was ultimately denied official recognition by the University, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education stepped in, accusing officials of denying students their right to free speech.

And supporters of Prop 19 will need the help of just such student groups to further their cause. One professor who signed the letter, Steve Berenson, told Annenberg Digital News that his "guess is that [prop 19] will be narrowly defeated."

California voters will be able to vote on the proposition on Nov. 2. If passed, it will be effective starting Nov. 3.

Do you agree with the law professors, or do you think Prop 19 is problematic? Share below.

Comments

[sclaw1]

02:20 PM on 10/21/2010

These law professors are quack.
Prop 19 is riddled with loopholes like Prop 215. What are they thinking? They fooled the Californians once with Prop 215. They can fool them again with Prop 19.

Look at Prop 215.
"(1) The people of the State of California hereby find and declare that the purposes of the Compassionate Use Act of 1996 are as follows: To ensure that seriously ill Californians have the right to obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes where that medical use is deemed appropriate and has been recommended by a physician who has determined that the persons health would benefit from the use of marijuana ."

SERIOUSLY ILL medical marijuana patients? Really.

The LOOPHOLE of PROP 215.

"Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no physician in this state shall be punished, or denied any right or privilege, for having recommended marijuana to a patient for medical purposes."

In other words, the PHYSICIAN is ALWAYS RIGHT when this doctor recommends marijuana to anybody like healthy 18-19 year old teens.

This is why ANYONE, ANYONE qualifies for a medical marijuana card in California because no one can ever challenge the unscrupulous doctor's recommendations.

So the physicians in California have effectively become legal pot pushers.

[tauleonardo]

09:22 AM on 10/21/2010

Cannabis should have never been illegal in the first place. Its “illegality” is not based on any science, just on lies, distortions of fact, and blatant racism. The truth is that Cannabis is less physically addictive than caffeine, and that it may also serve as a much “safer alternative” to alcohol and/or hard drugs. Another Cannabis product, hemp, was used by humans since time immemorial! It is fully recognized that Cannabis use SUPPRESSES VIOLENT BEHAVIOR!

So, it is naive to presume that a bunch of fear-mongerers can change this fact, no matter how loud and untruthful they become! The so-called “gateway” drug theory was found to be totally invalid, and a very recent large study called this “theory” half-baked. It is simply untrue scientifically.

Cannabis is not physically addictive, as there is no clearly definable and reproducible physical withdrawal syndrome, observed with alcohol or opiate withdrawal, for example. A recent large study denied any connection between smoking Cannabis and a risk for lung cancer. Quite the opposite, Cannabis use is being found to have some preventative role with such serious conditions as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, and according to the latest research, Cannabis may even be an “exit substance” for recovering alcoholics/hard drug/prescription drug abusers. Cannabis criminalization leads to horrendous Civil Rights violations around the country. YES to Cannabis re-Legalization! YES on Cali Prop. 19!



[sclaw1]

04:16 PM on 10/20/2010

Prop 19 gives pot users first class treatment. If the pot users are not being treated according to Prop 19, they can sue. Prop 19 is a lawyer's paradise.

"No person shall be punished, fined, discriminated against, or be denied any right or privilege for lawfully engaging in any conduct permitted by this act or authorized pursuant to Section 11301. Provided, however, that the existing right of an employer to address consumption that actually impairs job performance by an employee shall not be affected."

"Notwithstanding Sections 11470 and 11479 of this code or any
other provision of law, no state or local law enforcement agency or
official shall attempt to, threaten to, or in fact seize or destroy any
cannabis plant, cannabis seeds, or cannabis that is lawfully
cultivated, processed, transported, possessed, possessed for sale,
sold, or used in compliance with this act or any local government
ordinance, law, or regulation adopted pursuant to this act."

[sclaw1]

04:24 PM on 10/20/2010

So if you have a neighbor growing marijuana plants in their property near your bedroom and those tall weeds becomes your view, you cannot ask law enforcement to remove those plants. If you live in a neighborhood with limited or no backyard and your neighbors decide to have a 25 sq feet cultivation of potted weed plants on their roofs, no one can remove those. If you eat in a restaurant and these diners have their bongs and less than an ounce of weed and lighters at their table but they are not consuming them, you cannot kick them out. That's discrimination.
If you are carpooling with workers to go somewhere and half of the passengers decided to smoke in the car, no one can stop them to do that. They have the right to smoke in a non-public place or you will be sued.

[kb7834]

09:32 PM on 10/20/2010

Can you ask law enforcement to remove you neighbors new trees that he plants near your bedroom? If someone starts a large garden of tomato plants on their roof can you ask law enforcement to remove them? And your last two examples are ridiculous. Of course a restaurant could ask them to leave, it is their private property. You can ask someone to leave if the bring in alcohol to your restaurant, even if they aren't consuming it. And the same thing goes with cars. You don't have to let people smoke cigarettes in your car, why would you have to let them smoke weed.

[sclaw1]

04:33 PM on 10/20/2010

You have no right as an employer to address the consumption of marijuana unless you can prove that it impairs job performance. So that means, you have to wait until an accident happens before you can address this with the employee. If an operator of a FAIR with rides is stoned, you cannot address his use of pot even though he appears to work with bloodshot eyes and look wasted. It has to actually impair his job performance, so this means that to prove it, if the operator set the ride too fast and someone was thrown off the ferris wheel then that ACTUALLY proves that this has impaired his job performance.

[Demarcus Jackson]

12:33 PM on 10/20/2010

I'll add that I do like the fact that these Law professors are adding their intellectual credibility to this on-going debate. I think it is a good thing, generally speaking.

[Lisbeth35]

12:42 PM on 10/20/2010

agreed.

[etebol2003]

03:46 PM on 10/20/2010

agreed

[Demarcus Jackson]

12:31 PM on 10/20/2010

I find the "promoting structural racism" compelling.

I'm not sure I fully agree with the "shrink the existing black market and allow law enforcers to spend more time and resources on reducing violent crime" argument. I've seen a lot of people freak out and act violently while they were high on pot. Moreover, I think drug cartels still have a steady stream of users for other hardcore drugs like meth.

[Lisbeth35]

12:41 PM on 10/20/2010

I have never seen anyone freak out or act violently on pot. Alcohol? A different story altogether.

[Jordan Fanucchi]

12:51 PM on 10/20/2010

Out of all the people I've known in my life, I've only known one to act violently on pot, and it was a genetic thing. Other people in his family had similar re4actions when they tried pot around his age. the only thing he did was get a bad high, and resort to punching a tree.

However it is undeniably much more common to be violent, and without proper judgment on alcohol.

[Demarcus Jackson]

01:03 PM on 10/20/2010

It was just my own personal account. Most people I know who smoke pot act "fine", although I am never completely comfortable around someone who is high on anything. Without a doubt users and abusers of alcohol are frequently prone to violence and I have personally experienced great tragedy that was the result of alcohol use.

I no longer use any drugs, but in my adolescence I used pot and I never personally became aggressive. My reaction to the high was relatively mild.

[Laryssa]

01:00 PM on 10/20/2010

sounds like their pot was laced with crack or something else....i've never ever heard of anyone "freaking out and act violently while they were high on pot"

simply not true

[carester]

07:19 AM on 10/20/2010

Agree with the Prof. who said that it would be narrowly defeated. Some times people ignore that not everyone thinks like them. People think that California is San Francisco, and it is not. Let's see what happens. My gut feeling is that it will end like prop 8.

[ackezzy]

09:16 AM on 10/20/2010

i agree

[ray christl]

04:04 AM on 10/20/2010

End this slave drug war...Vote YES Prop 19 !

[comebackid]

01:59 AM on 10/20/2010

When everyone realizes that the CSA is not law, is a fraud and a ruse, we may then shut this Nazified progrgram of police welfare down!

[Lauren Kottwitz]

10:51 PM on 10/19/2010

Go Prop 19!

Legalize it, use that tax money to pay off some of that ridiculous debt!

[tck29]

10:07 PM on 10/19/2010

I have a problem understanding why criminalization of cannabis cannot be challenged based on the evidence used to make it illegal in the first place. It's quite clear that the evidence ONLY consisted of junk science and absurd propaganda. Why do the courts allow this to stand?

[HazMat5]

01:08 AM on 10/20/2010

Sadly no such evidence is needed. If congress wants to make it illegal, then they enact the legislation to do so. Outside of the context of taking it as a religious sacrament, one would be hard pressed to make a case that prohibition violates some constitutionally guaranteed right. As long as everyone is treated the same under the law, and it doesn't step on some established right, then it would appear that there is not a compelling legal argument for overturning prohibition. There are many compelling arguments that the current laws do more harm than good, but those lines of reasoning end up with "congress should act to change current law" not "current law is unconstitutional".

[comebackid]

01:57 AM on 10/20/2010

You are wrong Sir, congress does not have Carte Blanche to willynilly pass laws that contfict with established constitutional law without creating an ammendment, i.e. the 18Th and 20Th ammendments!

[Ravi Abunijad]

07:30 PM on 10/19/2010

It would be nice to see it pass, but I agree with the professor they interviewed who said it will probably be defeated narrowly (if voter apathy remains low in this election). It was leading in the polls for months, but the recent (valid) polling companies are showing it losing now. I'll bet the spending has a lot to do with it: Beer companies, pharmaceutical firms, social conservative organizations... all of them are doing everything they can to see this thing get defeated, including big spending. That's not even including those dispensaries and growers who benefit from the black market status, and are now joining the fight against it.

I know they're all pushing a big message right now about how it is going to cause problems for those with medical conditions, and it will raise costs, etc, but people have to be smarter than that: Those are desperation scare tactics.

If this thing is going to pass, younger voters have to step it up and turn out for this. Yeah, we can pretend that it's ONLY about pot, who cares, blah blah blah. But it's more than that. If it passes, it sends a message that voters reject this type of criminalization of a plant. If the referendum fails, it sends the message that voters still agree with excessive government spending and oversight with regard to what we do with our bodies. This is a big deal.

[phishphan]

07:22 PM on 10/19/2010

Legalize it, tax it and regulate it!

[yumyum1211]

06:57 PM on 10/19/2010

I believe that cannabis should be legalised everywhere. YES ON 19!

[hey0there]

06:34 PM on 10/19/2010

im for it but i am not for bricknmortar pot stores. mail order only

[JStading]

04:22 AM on 10/20/2010

Why? By barring brick and mortar stores, you are stripping away the local benefits of marijuana legalization. Namely, you're stopping commercial real estate from increasing in value by decreasing storefront demand and you're prohibiting localities from reaping the benefits of licensing fees. You're also halting the ability of existing businesses (read: bars and hookah lounges) to expand their product offerings to increase profits. You're also lowering the likelihood that there will be an increase in local employment to service the legal marijuana industry. In fact, by running mail order only, you are only encouraging centralization of production and foreign supply.

[davewill]

06:05 PM on 10/19/2010

Weed prohibition is virtually unenforceable. Any time we have such laws it creates REAL crime and erodes public respect for the law.